The present invention concerns a novel decorative embellishment for clothing allowing casual clothing to be dressed up as needed for more formal situations.
Presently, there is a trend in offices, schools and other places of employment and/or leisure towards casual attire. Ladies and gentlemen have taken to wearing casual clothing that permits a more comfortable working or learning environment and presents a more egalitarian society. Further, vacationers and tourists have become more casual as formal clothing is rarely worn during vacations and the extra weight in transporting formal clothing on vacation makes carrying such clothes impractical. It has become rare to find vacationers traveling with formal attire.
As a result, it is often the case that when there is a call for a more formal look, such as when a client makes a surprise visit to an office, upon entering an upscale restaurant, or when visiting a tourist site that requires a more polished appearance, many persons are now not appropriately dressed for the situation. In the case of tourists far from home such situations present the option of missing out on an interesting site, event, or restaurant, or purchasing new clothes (typically at premium prices) at the vacation site.
Currently, casual wear, and most especially business casual wear, often includes a casual shirt or pullover, casual slacks and often times a sports jacket or blazer for gentlemen, and similar items for ladies. Leisure casual wear, including that worn by tourists, includes the above ensemble with, at times, the more casual T-shirt replacing the casual shirt. With such an ensemble (with or without a jacket or blazer), a tie, bolo or scarf may often times provide the added embellishment to allow casual attire to rise to the level needed for the situations noted above. However, ties and scarves are not comfortable to wear, are not always easy to fashion to one""s clothing quickly, and are generally not convenient to transport in a pocket (which generally will cause the tie or scarf to become wrinkled, or may cause the misplacing or damaging of the slide of a bolo tie, defeating the initial purpose of dressing up an ensemble) for use when needed. Further, a well formed tie or scarf requires skill to fashion correctly and, unfortunately, this skill is becoming more rare in this era of casual clothing. Also, neckties require buttoned collars which are often tight and restricting causing discomfort to the wearer often resulting in the pulling down of the tie and opening of the collar, and a slovenly appearance. Further, in instances where one is wearing a collarless shirt, T-shirt or other type of pullover shirt, a tie becomes impractical as such a look is the antithesis of formality.
It would be desirable to have an article of clothing or an embellishment to casual clothing that would provide the added touch to bring such clothing some formality. It would, further, be desirable to have such an embellishment or article of clothing be easily and inexpensively produced and be easily transportable and/or purchasable in a large variety of locations, including vending machines. It would be desirable to have an article or embellishment that could be quickly and easily placed on one""s person and as easily removed and stored (for a subsequent use) after use. It would also be desirable to have such an article of clothing or embellishment to clothing that could be quickly and inexpensively provided as a party favor, or worn by a group, to present a message, such as xe2x80x9chappy birthdayxe2x80x9d, for a party, and xe2x80x9cdon""t eat grapesxe2x80x9d as a message.
The present invention provides a solution to these problems by easily, quickly, conveniently and inexpensively embellishing casual clothing. The present invention also provides an article of clothing or an embellishment to clothing that is easy and inexpensive to produce and is readily available for use in a variety of situations.
In accordance with the present invention, a garment embellishment for use with casual clothing is provided. In one embodiment, the garment embellishment is used in association with a jacket or blazer and casual attire. The garment embellishment comprises an ornamental article having one of a plurality of forms and being free of any means for attachment to the neck or collar. The ornamental article can be removably applied to the torso of a first garment such that the garment is decorated and made more formal or more colorful, depending on the intent of the wearer. The ornamental article can be applied to the torso of a first garment, worn beneath a jacket or blazer within the generally V-shaped opening typically formed in the front of a jacket or blazer, such that the article decorates the exposed area of the first garment. When used with a jacket, a blazer or even a suit or tuxedo, the present invention provides a more formal look, as, or almost as formal, as that achieved by wearing a neck tie, bolo tie, ascot or scarf.
The ornamental article can be made of cloth, which can be laid flat or folded to a pleasing shape and which can be secured to batting. The ornamental article can also be made of paper, which can be cut to a desired shape, and which can have a pattern, drawing or picture printed thereon by an artist or by a color printer (for example, one attached to a personal computer) or copier. The ornamental article can also be made of other materials such as metal sheets, woven metals, cardboard or other card stock, plastic, vinyl, leather (or other hides or parchment) plain or decorated to the taste of the wearer. It will be understood by persons having skill in the art that wide varieties of materials, shapes and designs, with any variety of decorations or decorative elements can be used without departing from the novel scope of the present invention. It is to be understood that the ornamental article of the present invention may be made of any shape, such as a traditional necktie shape or the shape of a bow-tie, ascot, scarf; or can be made triangular, circular, oval, polygonal or random shapes, without departing from the novel scope of the present invention. It is an element of the present invention that the shape of the article be left to the wearer so that the wearer may exercise his creativity and attitude in selecting or creating an ornamental article.
In the preferred embodiment of the present invention, the ornamental article of the present invention can be applied at any vertical position on the torso of the shirt or blouse of the wearer. The wearer may decide to place the ornamental article near the neck line, such that the article resembles a necktie, or the wearer may place the article in a more centered position. In the more centered position, the article will not be confused with a necktie, giving the user a more free form decoration as desired. It is to be understood that the position of placement, on the torso, of the ornamental article of the present invention is to be left to the wearer as an element of the decorative aspects of the ornamental article, the wearer""s taste and fashion sense, and the method of use of the present invention.
In one embodiment of the invention, the garment embellishment is attached by an adhesive, typically a double-sided adhesive tape, to a shirt. In another embodiment a hook and loop fastener, such as a Velcro(copyright) brand fastener, can be used to apply the embellishment to a garment. In still another embodiment, one or more button holes or loops are applied to the back of the garment embellishment and it is attached to one or more buttons on a shirt or blouse. In another embodiment, hook and loop fastener elements are provided as button covers and on the back of the ornamental article such that adhesive need not be placed on a shirt in order to attach the ornamental article to the garment. In other embodiments, pins (straight or safety), jewelry (such as tie pins, stick pins, earrings, broaches, cameos or other such items) can be used to attach the ornamental article to a shirt or blouse. Persons having skill in the art will recognize that there are a large variety of ways of attaching an ornamental article or garment embellishment, of the type described, to a shirt, blouse or shirt-like garment, without departing from the novel scope of the present invention.
It is to be understood that any type of shirt or blouse may be worn while using the garment embellishment, including, but not limited to: button down shirts, blouses, pullover shirts, turtleneck shirts, T-shirts, sweatshirts, sweaters, and each with or without a collar and/or with short or long sleeves. Further the garment embellishment of the present invention may be worn with all-in-one clothing such as overalls, jump suits, dresses, uniforms and others, without departing from the novel scope of the present invention.
A more detailed explanation of the invention is provided in the following description and claims and is illustrated in the accompanying drawings.